Failure of wishful thinking in Iran

I had been reading a number of articles–like this one and this one–saying that Iran’s middle class and its young people, who are secular at heart, may well vote their radical president out of office. But Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was re-elected

in a landslide. Supporters of his moderate rival Mirhossein Mousavi claim the election was stolen. His followers are staging protests, some of which have put down violently. It looks like we will still have to deal with Ahmadinejad, whether he is the democratically-elected president or a dictator. The U.S. has been pressuring Israel not to bomb Iran’s nuclear facilities, I suspect holding out the hope of a new, less aggressive government, but now we’ll have to see what will happen, including what Israel will do.